Exhausted Democracy

"An aesthetically superior, cheerfully socio-critical and tremendously stimulating theatrical experience" theater pur

"Each of these concepts is thought-provoking, each is also frightening on different levels. Everyone sets different priorities. Sometimes it's primarily about happiness, sometimes about the preservation of species and civilization, sometimes about the pure, smooth functioning of society. They are all excellently presented, by Tomasso Tessitori, who presents the 'Open Narration' in the orange, Buddhist-style coat with deliberate balance and an inwardly almost exploding cheerfulness, by Petra Weimer, who looks a little bit like an ancient, tired and yet life-wise and very precise ant queen herself, and by Helena Aljona Kühn with her natural-looking mixture of representation consciousness and enthusiasm. On many levels, the seminar, i.e. the communication situation, is reflected and made productive. Andrea Bleikamp's incredibly subtly staged evening is intense, but, with positive energy flowing through it, it remains wonderfully relaxed and makes it possible to absorb the concentrated, albeit stringently served amounts of information with little effort. Thus even exhausted democracy has the greatest strength of Rosi Ulrich's theatre work: it forces the viewer to deal with himself, his needs and desires, his fears, his selfishness, his thought patterns and barriers. This also came out convincingly in the 20-minute, lively discussion that concluded the performance." Andreas Falentin in pure theatre

"For the latest production of the theater-51grad, "Exhausted Democracy", regression is not a promising solution strategy for change. ... There is the OPN, the Open Narration, which completely rethinks political representation, makes states superfluous and attempts to transform power into information and cooperation. The space with the "living artwork" is dominated by an installation in which an ant colony lives. Perfect functionality can be quite beautiful, as the tangle and crawling in the tubes and cylinders shows. ... And then there's "Europien", the place with an unconditional basic income, a negative exchange rate and a Ministry of Happiness." Bernhard Krebs in choices

"I'm an artificial figure," says the man, "an Utopian." He stands on a glowing plastic stool and talks about climate catastrophe, war and unemployment. About us. And about Utopians having a hard time in 2016. They are condensed, strong images. The man explains what is happening now. We will see three rooms one after the other. Each room has a theme: nature, economy, politics. The three groups with their collars divide, each group experiences each space. I have a green ribbon, and my group is the first to look at an ancient but forward-looking model of society: That of the ants.... A society that is 150 million years old. 50,000 individuals, 26 degrees Celsius. The ants fetch leaves from a storage flask and make food for a fungus from them. The fungus produces a fat protein that ants feed on. Right in the centre: the queen. It gives no orders. The hierarchies are flat. ...
We sit around a table and take our Lego bricks out of our pockets. We build towers, in any colour, six towers of different heights are built - the highest for work, education and social affairs. In other words, we see a need for action in these areas in 2016. In "Europien", the country of the future, there is the unconditional basic income. "The financial pressure is small," says the woman. Which of the six areas would we be involved in if we had this basic income, if we lived in the future, in Europien? ...
Then a man in orange would let us into the third room. Nature, the economy - and now politics. The man has a blue thing on his left temple, a kind of implant. A cyborg? Inside an oval row of tables, eight luminous screens, a huge touch flat screen in front. The showroom of the Max Planck Foundation, smart and clinical. ...The man tells of the rejection of the nation state, of the abolition of professional politicians, of informed participation. And of the blue thing on his head, the "blue tank", which networks every citizen with a data cloud so that everyone can always access all relevant information. I think: chic and scary.
The evening is almost over, we have thought three times about a possible future in which people could be happier. If they wanted to. Now comes the final conference, all three groups and all four actors talking to each other for 20 minutes ... The alarm clock rings. The 20 minutes are up. The evening is over. It's about 10 pm, and I'm back on the rushing street. That wasn't a play. It was a journey through possibilities, it was the design of a future. Two hours between reality and science fiction. There was a lot of applause for an extraordinary, stirring and quite meaningful non-theatrical evening." Jörg-Christian Schillmöller in: meinesuedstadt.de

"Thus "Exhausted Democracy" ploughs through the fields of economy, politics and nature and creates models that can be found either inspiring or irritating. After all: the concluding 'conference' really brings people together to talk about great ideas instead of the last 'crime scene'. I think the thought to abolish politicians charming', praises one spectator." Patrick Wildermann in: Tagesspiegel, Berlin.

"The "Exhausted Democracy" is not a frontal theatrical sprinkling, but rather a kind of participatory experience. ... And while you sit there and develop these ideas, you often have the moment when you think: Yes, why not? ... All this is such a radically positive evening. These utopias inspire, you noticed that in the subsequent public discussion, where the ideas presented were passionately discussed further." Michael Hölzen in: rbb Radioeins